christian relief fund blog

Singing in the… Desert?

As we were driving a Land Cruiser through one of the most remote deserts on earth, we spied a group of guys walking across the parched ground. We immediately wondered who they were. We thought that we should drive over to check them out—but then again—these men could be dangerous.

But we went over anyway.

As we got closer to them, they spread out and circled our car. Then they marched around it. It was pretty scary. As you can see in this picture, these weren’t the kind of people I saw walking around in Amarillo,Texas. It also didn’t help that they were carrying spears.

We rolled down our window and tried to communicate with them. But we didn’t speak their language. One of them held out his hand. It seemed to be the universal sign for “I want your money!” Yes, we thought we were being robbed. So we gave them some money (certainly not all we had) hoping they would go away.

When they received the money, they burst out in song! No, they weren’t robbers. And, yes, we had just given them a tip to sing us a song. In fact, they were wedding singers traveling across the desert to liven up a wedding ceremony with song.

I really don’t have a great point. I just wanted to tell this story. But after I thought about it, something clicked in my head.

These people are very, very different from us—but they have water near them coming from CRF donors. And not only that—they have a church near them planted by CRF.